


what home means now

by Ponderosa (ponderosa121)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Anal Fisting, Anal Sex, Background Relationships, Bisexual Daryl Dixon, Bodily Fluids, Come Inflation, Established Relationship, M/M, Psychic Bond, Sex Pollen, Weird Biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:47:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23030401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa121/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: Jesus tosses a small canvas bag towards him. Whatever’s in it doesn’t weigh much; it lands with a whisper in the grass. Dog runs up and gives it a sniff, shying away quickly then sniffing a second time before retreating.Daryl wipes the blade of his knife off on a scrap of cloth. He aims at the bag with the point. “What’s inside?”“A plant. Invasive species maybe. I found it on the edge of one of the areas we’re considering seeding with thornbushes. I’ve...never seen anything like it before.”[aka possibly alien spores make them do it]
Relationships: Daryl Dixon/Jesus
Comments: 11
Kudos: 79





	what home means now

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is pure shameless sex pollen, but is also how I would branch off from Season 9 into fix-it universe. So anyway, contains some background Jesus/Aaron and some Daryl/Rick vibes.

It’s been a good six months since Daryl last visited Hilltop so it ain’t much of a surprise when eventually his absence leads to Jesus coming around to him.

“Brought some root vegetables for you,” Jesus says. He waits politely on the other side of the tripwires. He don’t smell like horse, so he probably came by foot; Dog didn’t even bark, the traitor.

“You looking to trade or is this a handout?”

“Trade,” Jesus says. He crooks a smile and dips his head in a faint nod acknowledging that he knows Daryl wouldn’t accept the latter. “For information not goods.”

Daryl goes back to skinning rabbits and says, “Ain’t no spy and ain’t no snitch neither.”

The kid is dead wrong if he thinks Daryl’s gonna give up details on what the other communities are up to as easily as Aaron. Yeah, he knows about that and has for a long time. The sound of fighting carries a long way on the wind. They’re a whole lot quieter when they get around to the fucking.

Jesus tosses a small canvas bag towards him. Whatever’s in it doesn’t weigh much; it lands with a whisper in the grass. Dog runs up and gives it a sniff, shying away quickly then sniffing a second time before retreating.

Daryl wipes the blade of his knife off on a scrap of cloth. He aims at the bag with the point. “What’s inside?”

“A plant. Invasive species maybe. I found it on the edge of one of the areas we’re considering seeding with thornbushes. I’ve...never seen anything like it before.”

“Thornbushes…. You still trying to get Mother Nature to build your damn walls for you?”

At first glance it ain’t a bad idea building up thickets that the dead can’t push through, but that old bitch has a way of turning things around. And not to the advantage of people.

“Hilltop members like the idea. It’s my job to consider all the options.”

Bullshit it is. Rick would listen to folks, but he’d make a plan and stick to it. None of this wishy-washy what the people want circle jerk. In Daryl’s opinion it’s a big damn waste of resources looking to try and grow something like that. If it takes root and thrives, what then? In a few years it’s gonna be hell to clear out. A barrier like that’s gonna end up blocking exit routes, and what if it pushes into the crops? You’re just trading one risk for another. Might as well just dig a fucking moat around all the fields.

Daryl’s curiosity is piqued though, and he opens up the bag to shake out the plant. It’s a scrubby looking thing—the sort of nondescript underbrush you see just about everywhere—only this one’s got three big fat red berries in a cluster clinging to a stem. “Probably poisonous by the look of it,” he says, and pushes the point of his knife into one of the fruits. It’s got a tough skin on it. Daryl pokes it a little harder and it still doesn’t give. “Huh. Maybe the kind of thing that’s supposed to pass through an animal.”

Jesus gestures at the wire. “May I?”

“Yeah, sure,” Daryl says, and stoops to use the scrap of bloody cloth to pluck one of the berries off and inspect it. It comes off a little too easily, nothing left behind on the stem at all, like it’d been clinging there and not really part of the plant. It feels soft and plump like a grape and looks sort of like a cherry tomato, but there’s something else weird about it….

Jesus is coming in for a closer look when the thing _wriggles_ in Daryl’s hand and it spits a puff of something out into the air. Jesus covers his face in his elbow and spins away into a crouch like it’s a goddamn grenade. It’s probably the right move. Daryl drops the thing like it’s hot and it deflates like a balloon before he stomps it into the soft, damp earth.

“What the fuck–”

“Spores?” Jesus guesses.

Hastily, Daryl uses the bag to scoop up the plant, careful not to inhale incase there’s anything left hanging in the air. “You okay?” he asks, pulling the drawstring taut and tossing the bag away from them both.

“Yeah, I think so. Definitely breathed in a bit of whatever that was, but it’s just a little...spicy.”

Daryl pulls a snotrag out of his back pocket and passes it to Jesus. “Here.”

“Thanks.”

Jesus uses the handkerchief and sniffs experimentally. He takes a few deep inhales and seems all right; no sign of any kind of immediate allergic reaction anyway. He pinches at his nose and blows it a second time.

Whatever the fuck those berries are, at least now Daryl will know to steer clear if he sees ‘em around. “Better going out than in, right? Like most things.”

Jesus shifts his weight, swaying slightly, and wipes his nose clean. He cocks an eyebrow before he smiles faintly to himself. “Well, some things are better going in,” he says, a touch dreamily.

The guy takes a faceful of god knows what and starts cracking wise about getting rawed up the ass…? Really? Just because they’ve given it to each other a few times don’t mean they got a thing going.

“You come out here looking for that, too?”

“Not initially, but you know I wouldn’t turn it down,” he says, and his teeth scrape over his lip thoughtfully. He blinks, his brow furrowing briefly before he folds the handkerchief in on itself. “Sorry, I don’t know what I…. I’ll um, wash this and get it back to you, how about.”

“Fucking keep it,” Daryl tells him.

“No, I’ll um–” Jesus trails off with a frown. His pale eyes go momentarily unfocused then glassy, and he reaches a hand up to wipe something away from his nose.

There’s blood on his fingertips, bright red and glistening. Daryl barely catches him before he crumples.

*

For such a skinny fucker, Jesus is made of muscle and weighs more than he looks. He slips in and out of consciousness as Daryl carries him to his motorcycle. At least it ain’t the first time he’s had to ride with someone passed out or so fucking high they can’t do more than drool. He manages to get Jesus wedged up against the gas tank facing him, and he drapes Jesus’s thighs over his own.

“Come on I need you to hold on if you can,” Daryl says, clapping him on the leg.

He lifts Jesus’s arms up to loop them around his neck before he reaches carefully around him to start the engine. The kid’s grip is lax but he slumps forward a bit more against Daryl’s chest and it leaves his weight better distributed. Daryl generally cruises slow for Dog anyway, but with Jesus’s body shifting alarmingly with every turn it’s a goddamn crawl. Every so often Jesus clings a little tighter to him and groans out a fucking obscene sound that sounds more like a wet dream than a fever dream. And he’s positive it isn’t bumps in the road when more than once Jesus clutches at him and rocks his hips like he does when he’s begging to get fucked.

Somehow they make it to the Hilltop in one piece. 

Ain’t no one else in the communities with a functioning hog so they open the gate right up to Daryl. It’s bad security. Circumstances like this, Alexandria guards would’ve called out and made him explain the situation. Here, the only alarm they raise is for medical, and as he pulls in towards the trailers Enid’s already rushing out with someone to help. Steve, maybe? The guy looks like a Steve.

As they ease Jesus off the bike, Daryl hands over the bag holding the plant along with a warning about how it all came about. He’s not sure what they’ll get out of it but maybe someone will know something. Then it’s straight away inside with him insisting that it definitely ain’t a bite that’s making Jesus sweat and shake.

Enid hands Daryl a couple antihistamine pills to feed to Jesus, and as he shoves them past the kid’s lips, this time he’s positive the way Jesus rolls his tongue out to take them is straight up pornographic. He’s half-conscious and moaning, swinging his gaze between them as they strip him down to his shorts, and no one says a thing about the fact that Jesus is sporting a hard-on as they check his body for wounds.

“These symptoms...I don’t know how to treat this,” Enid says, skimming through the index in a textbook and flipping back and forth between pages.

“I just need–” Jesus mumbles. He lets out a filthy fucking groan and twists the way he does when he’s got a mouth on his dick. Daryl’s ears go red hot. It can’t be a coincidence.

“He’s burning up,” Steve says.

“Put him in the tub, maybe if we can cool him down it’ll help,” Enid instructs them.

Daryl helps ease Jesus off the bed again and move him to the big aluminum tub at the back of the trailer. Jesus doesn’t want to seem to let go of him; it’s like trying to detach from a handsy fucking octopus. He manages to get free and retreats to take up space in the corner as Steve brings in a couple pails of water. Daryl watches silently as they pour it over him and use a couple of bowls to keep ladling the water over Jesus’s shivering body. For some reason, Jesus doesn’t seem to try and grope at either of them. Or maybe cooling him down is doing the trick. The pink flush riding Jesus’s cheeks definitely fades, and as his fever goes down so does his erection.

Enid checks his temperature a couple times with an ear thermometer, and when she judges it’s been enough time, they pull him out.

“Thank you,” Jesus mumbles, clutching at the front of the blanket they drape around his shoulders. He definitely looks more present and proves coherent enough to answer a few simple questions and request water to drink.

None of his answers are helpful, and he keeps forgetting what he’s already answered, but at least he isn’t seeming like he’s two seconds away from passing out or shooting his wad or whatever the fuck is going haywire with his body.

“I suppose we confine you to bed rest and keep you under observation for at least twenty-four hours,” Enid tells him. “I don’t know what else to do. Can you walk back to your trailer?”

It doesn’t surprise Daryl a bit to find out Jesus had kept his trailer and didn’t take a room in the house once elected. Ain’t been easy, he imagines, being cooped up with other people’s bullshit. Probably there’s a lot that’s been chafing at him like a collar around his neck. 

“Yeah I think so,” Jesus says. “You should post someone outside. Just in case, and padlock the door. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“How about I stay with you,” Daryl says. “Don’t think I got hit, but if I did, better to have us both in one place.”

Enid nods at that. “Twenty-four hours seems reasonable. I’ll have someone posted in the yard and tell everyone else to stay away. We’ll set you up with food and water, but is there anything else you think you’ll need?”

Daryl looks down at Dog and gives him a scratch behind the ears. “Make sure Dog gets a little something to eat. If anything changes I’ll holler.“

*

Jesus is fine for a good hour sitting at his little table. He talks for a bit, drinks a shit ton of water, eats a bowl of stew. They play a couple rounds of cards and then he ends up taking a minute to sit back and rest with his eyes closed. His breathing turns even and steady. He looks fucking exhausted. Before he falls asleep in the chair, Daryl gets him to move to the bed.

“Thanks for staying with me,” he says, laying himself out on top of the covers. With a groan, he throws his arm over his eyes. “Thanks for getting me home.”

Wordlessly, Daryl takes a seat on the floor by the doorway and thinks about what home means now to him that Rick’s lost out there. It isn’t within the walls of Alexandria and it’s not here, neither. He drapes an arm over the bend of his knee and settles in to wait. He ain’t so sure Jesus is past this yet, but whatever is going to come is going to come.

Sure enough after the sun’s been down a while, the fever comes creeping back, imperceptible until Jesus’s breathing thins out. Daryl lights the lamp at Jesus’s bedside. The flush in his cheeks is hard to read in the orange of the flame, but when he puts his palm to Jesus’s forehead, he can feel it burning under the kid’s skin. Jesus’s temperature is nowhere near as high as it was before, but he reacts to the touch with needy moans, soft and pleading. The heat seems to linger in Daryl’s palm when he pulls away, fading quickly enough that he doesn’t worry overmuch.

He brings a chair around and stays on nursemaid duty, toweling the sweat off Jesus’s brow and the hollow of his throat here and there, careful now not to let their skin touch. Every time they come into direct contact Jesus arches towards it like he’s starving for it; a different but equally mindless hunger than the walkers have.

It’s creepy as fuck.

When the fever breaks, it’s obvious and Daryl gets up from his seat to assess his state. “Hey there, you back with me?” he says.

Jesus’s eyes are clear again as he struggles to push himself upright. He tucks his hair behind his ears. “Where am I?”

“Got you back to your people, remember?”

“Right. I’m sick.”

“You came down with something, but it ain’t clear what. You remember any of what happened?”

Jesus scrunches his eyes shut and drinks down the glass of water Daryl presses into his hand. “I do. I think. Twenty-four hour quarantine after I...I breathed in those spores or whatever they were. I feel strange,” he says, opening his eyes again and looking down at his arms. “Every inch of my skin feels like it’s on fire.“

“You’ve been running a fever and sweat enough to fill a swimming pool. You want more water?”

“No, I need to move,” he insists, already swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He’s sporting a hard-on again and stares at it confused.

“You ain’t going nowhere.”

Jesus adjusts himself in his shorts and his gaze jumps to the door. He drinks down the glass at his bedside before trying once more to stand, his toes flexing as he finds purchase on the floor. He waves a hand at himself and the room. “Look, I’ve been in bed for hours.”

Daryl supposes a little there and back again could help, maybe work out whatever’s in his system making him a poster boy for little blue pills.

“Alright, come on.” Daryl tries to slip an arm under Jesus, but the moment their skin comes in contact Jesus jerks and groans, a hard shiver going through him head to toe. It’s a whole lot more potent than the last time they’d touched.

“The hell–!” Daryl says, stepping back again, putting some distance between them.

The sound that pours out of Jesus’s throat keeps coming, and it ain’t pain. It’s slutty as all get out.

“God, Daryl, when you touch me...,” Jesus murmurs. He pants lightly and licks his lips. He rolls his head back and tries to calm his breathing, a hand splayed out wide across the flat of his chest. “I can’t even describe it.”

Daryl looks at his own hand and then at Jesus. What the fuck is happening to him? Plants are like animals, focused on surviving—on multiplying and finding new territory—so what kind of survival mechanic is getting folks horny? It don’t make sense. But what does these days, he supposes.

Slowly and deliberately, Daryl steps in and takes hold of Jesus’s shoulder. Jesus reaches up to grab his wrist and a ripple goes through the kid at the sustained contact. It takes a little longer but then he feels it again, the warmth in Jesus’s skin creeping up his arm, making him randy like he don’t get hardly ever.

Daryl pulls away, reluctantly. He shakes his hand out. “I get it. I can feel it.”

“Have I infected you?” Jesus asks, biting back another desperate groan.

“Dunno,” Daryl says, but already he can feel his gaze dragging towards the tented bulge of Jesus’s dick and picturing the weight of it in his mouth. The salt-sweat taste and the grind of Jesus’s pubes against his lips if he were to take it all the way into the throat. “Shit. What the fuck was in that goddamn plant.”

“No idea, it’s why I brought it to you,” Jesus says absently. He closes his teeth on his bottom lip and he’s not trying to get up and move around anymore, he’s scooting back in the tangle of his sheets instead and hooking his thumbs into his shorts to shove them down.

“What’re you…?” Daryl starts to ask, but he’s already hard. He can go months without thinking about—let alone caring about—getting off, but right now he can’t quite drag his thoughts away from touching Jesus again. It feels fucking weird to be craving the idea of getting his dick wet like some fucking teenager who can’t go twenty minutes without jerking it. 

“What if I just need to get fucked?” Jesus says in a breathy rush. He’s kicking his shorts off and rolling onto his knees, hauling his shirt off overhead and wadding it into a ball before wiping it down his front to gather up the sweat still clinging to his skin. “It’s all I can think about. What if I just need to...to feed whatever this is.”

He spits onto his fingers and reaches back like he’s ready to go with only that to ease the way. He flips his hair all to one side and turns a hungry look at Daryl. “Please. It’s not like you haven’t had a piece of my ass before.”

“That was different,” Daryl mutters, but he’s considering it. What if it _does_ do the trick? He can’t deny he’s hungering for it too now. And with Jesus on his hands and knees looking ready to go…. “Aw, hell.”

Feels a little wrong still to be stripping off his clothes and going through Jesus’s bedside table to find the rusting can of Crisco they’d used the last time. There’s hardly any left in it, and it’s been a while sure since he’d come round to Hilltop, but it’s nice to think that maybe the kid’s found someone here to get it from on the regular.

Daryl greases himself up quick, then scoops out another fingerful to get Jesus slicked and ready. The moment his finger slips inside Jesus’s tight hole, that weird needy lust gets stronger, and he can hardly focus on opening him up right. Not that Jesus seems to need it slow and careful. Hell, maybe spit alone would’ve done the trick, Daryl thinks, shuffling forward on his knees as Jesus’s body seems to welcome three of his fingers without struggle.

Fuck, easy as it is he could maybe just push the whole of his hand into the kid right now, he thinks dimly as he’s lining up the head of his dick alongside the knot of his fingers.

“Please,” Jesus says, head dipping down and ass tipping higher. His hair spills onto the mattress and the curve of his back looks like some kind of painting that belongs in a fucking museum. “I can’t—”

Daryl’s fingers are shaking, that weird horny urge starting to make it hard to think about doing anything other than fucking into the very willing body laid out before him. He grits his teeth, refusing to just drop on top of Jesus and push his dick in like some kind of drunken asshole who doesn’t care where he sticks it.

“Wanna make it good for you,” Daryl snarls, and spreads Jesus open with his palms. He lines himself up again and sinks in, and any other words he might wanna say get burnt to ash as the furnace of Jesus’s body devours him. A wild heat rages through his blood, makes everything go blank and narrow down to the slick perfect pleasure of slamming into Jesus’s greedy little hole. His balls slap up against Jesus’s taint and he uses the kid’s hipbones as handles as he goes as hard and raw as he can.

“Oh fuck, oh f-fuck….” The words come floating through the air. It’s Jesus who’s moaning and cursing, body writhing under him still desperate and wanton. Sweat has slicked his back to a shine and his fingers are clawed in the sheets.

Daryl isn’t sure how long he’s been going, rutting on top of the kid like some kind of fucking animal, but as he starts to be able to think again he slows down. He can’t stop thrusting though, can’t stop chasing that flame-lick of pleasure as Jesus’s body clings sweetly along the length of him. “You okay?”

“More than okay,” Jesus groans, sounding blissful. _High._

“You come?”

“Like a half dozen times. I think you did, too.” Jesus laughs breathily and Daryl notices that the both of them are shaking, bodies trembling at the brink of exhaustion. He straightens and looks down between them and sure enough, there’s come everywhere, smeared down his thighs and leaking out of where Jesus is fucking loose, his hole soft as a cunt now around Daryl’s dick.

“I think I got one more in me,” Daryl says a little awestruck, that tightness building in his balls even as he’s wondering in the back of his head whether or not he’s done some permanent damage to the kid.

“Give it to me,” Jesus says, and then muffles another groan into the meat of his arm as he reaches one hand down to work his own dick. He whimpers, like it’s maybe a little too much stimulation, but then he’s clenching, hole tightening back up a touch. It’s still easy as sin fucking into him, but Daryl’s a little less worried the kid’s gonna have to live with the shits permanently after this.

“Yeah, all right,” Daryl says, rising up on his knees and pushing the hair back from his face. He’s still moving, can’t quite seem to stop if he doesn’t put his mind to it, his hips working in little fitful twitches. He musters up the control to pull back, enough for the crown of his dick to slip out and bring with it a wet gushing mess of his own come.

It doesn’t seem possible for all of that to have been from him alone. Even when he was thirteen and spanking it until he was raw eventually the body ain’t got no more to give. Jesus looks he’s been on the receiving end of a fucking gonzo gangbang and yet something tells Daryl his next shot ain’t gonna be a blank.

He places a hand low on Jesus’s back and fucks back in, working to find the sweet spot between going into him deep and a rhythm that keeps him on this side of sanity. It’s a fine line, and his muscles are on the verge of giving out. If he goes too slow, his thoughts start getting fuzzy, a weird lethargy pulling at him, too fast and it’s like he’s a flywheel spinning up, that banked heat blazing back to life and sending signals to go even harder and faster. Daryl manages somehow to ride the line, and if a jackhammer pace is what the kid is really yearning for he ain’t complaining at hard but steady. Jesus rocks back eagerly to meet the sloppy plunge of Daryl’s dick, moaning with the same sort of filthy abandon as when he’s taking a mouthful.

Jesus seems to know Daryl’s close before he does, his fingers tightening in the sheets and a hiss of anticipation sucked in through his teeth in the seconds before Daryl feels that first hard slam of pleasure spasms through him. He grinds in, deep as he can, cock swelling to pump another load into the kid’s ass. He can fucking _feel_ it gushing out of him to fill Jesus’s insides. It’s an alarming amount, wave after wave, and he doesn’t want to pull out for fear that whatever comes spilling from the kid’s hole is gonna be something other than a gallon of jizz.

The urge to keep fucking wanes, and taking advantage of the clarity of mind Daryl pulls out. He drops down onto his heels and brings his hand to the sloppy mess of Jesus’s stretched hole, but it’s not a spill of viscera dripping out onto his fingers, it really is just come, a slippery impossible amount of it. Whatever it was in those fucking spores, it’d definitely gotten them both, done _something_ to their bodies to make this possible.

He plugs Jesus up with a knot of fingers just to stop it from leaking out of him and reaches around to find where the kid’s come has left a wide spreading stain on the bedding. His thighs are sopping and his belly…. Daryl presses the kid’s abdomen above the jut of his cock and he might be imagining it, but it seems like he can feel the fullness there.

“This is fucking weird,” he says, sitting back again to stare at where Jesus’s body is clutching to his fingers. 

“Mmmnhmm….” The sound Jesus makes is part agreement and part wanting more. He pushes back, wedging himself on Daryl’s fingers until the only thing stopping him from taking more is the barrier of Daryl’s thumb.

He’d thought about it earlier—that he could just sink the whole of his hand into Jesus’s willing body. Daryl flicks a tongue over his lip, tucks his thumb into his palm, and just lets it happen. Jesus is so slick with come and so damn loose that there’s hardly any resistance until his rim is stretched to its limit, straining around the widest part of Daryl’s hand.

“You can do it,” Daryl rasps, not entirely sure why he’s egging the kid on, but he kind of wants to feel it—all that come of his he’d dumped into Jesus’s boypussy. The smell of it is thick in the air, and he uses his free hand to smear the wet mess slowly drying on Jesus’s ass into the kid’s skin until he’s sure that the smell of it is sinking into every pore.

Suddenly his fingers skid in another fraction of an inch and then keep going until he’s got the whole of his hand buried inside Jesus’s hole.

Jesus’s chest flattens out on the bed, his breath turning into deep lungfuls that carry sound on every exhale. He looks more at peace than he has all night and Daryl twists his hand experimentally. There’s a wet squelch and he crooks his fingers, feeling the mess of his come slip between them. It’s nasty, but somehow the proof of it slicking up Jesus’s insides seems to satisfy that strange primal urge that’s been driving Daryl for hours now.

Turns out that whatever had made it so that Jesus could tell when he was close, Daryl’s got it too. There’s a strange echo in the base of his skull giving him a signal that Jesus isn’t quite done and he fucks the kid slowly with the whole of his fist. It’s almost a feedback loop, like he can sense the pleasure Jesus gets when something wide is tugging at his hole, the fresh stretch and then the easy slip back in deep again. The rapturous sensation when Daryl twists his hand and Jesus is so full of fingers and come and pressure is hitting him at all the right places. A bit more of that and Jesus’ll get there, tipped over that edge one last time.

Daryl’s never been much for any kind of talking, dirty talk least of all, but he mumbles a couple words of encouragement and that does the trick. Jesus’s breath is laden with sound, an endless shaky groan as Daryl’s fist keeps twisting slowly inside him. When orgasm seizes him, his body clenches around Daryl’s wrist, fixing his hand in place. He wriggles his fingers after, when the throbbing is only the steady beat of Jesus’s pulse, slowly starting to tug to get the kid’s hole to let him free.

Eventually he retrieves his hand, come leaking out after in a wet spill until the kid manages to tighten up and hold the rest in. He shivers and sinks entirely onto his belly, not caring about the mess of his own come spattered and spread beneath him. He’s blissed out, and Daryl can feel the echo of it.

“All that come ain’t normal. Think it’s some weird allergic reaction?”

“Could be, but it doesn’t explain the…,” Jesus murmurs, shifting slightly to gesture towards the base of his skull. “I mean, I don’t pretend understand it, but I feel pretty fucking great and seems like you do too.”

Daryl makes a face and wipes his hand off on the sheets. “Need to shit it all out? 

“At some point, but I’m worried that’ll start this cycle all over again. It’s not that uncomfortable if I stay on my stomach and I can hold it for a while. Had a boyfriend who was into enemas once.”

“Nasty.”

Jesus laughs quietly. “We’ll probably want to extend the quarantine, and let Enid know in the morning what happened, but I don’t think we were quiet.”

“Yeah,” Daryl replies. He wipes his hand off again and sits cross-legged at the edge of the bed where it’s backed up against the wall. He’d stayed the night with Jesus more than once, so probably there’d already been gossip, but this sure weren’t the way he’d want folks to find out he’s AC/DC. “Bound to come out some time.”

There’s that faint weird hum in his skull and he feels Jesus’s sympathy. It doesn’t raise his hackles—not as it might if Jesus had said something aloud—and he nods as he accepts the silent acknowledgment.

“In the end, if the um, wild marathon fuck isn’t an ongoing thing, this might give us an advantage against the walkers.”

“What d’you mean?”

Jesus closes his eyes, and whatever he does—think real hard or feel, maybe—Daryl picks up on the hazy concept of _water_ and _thirsty_. Yeah, he is too.

“What the fuck,” he spits, as he inches out of the bed to get them both some more water. Probably they need it. He’s lucky he’s not shriveled up like a fucking raisin with how much come his body had produced. He drains a glass and hands the other to Jesus before crawling over him to flop out on the mattress. “Look, we can figure this freaky shit out more tomorrow, alright? I need a goddamn nap.”

Jesus makes a soft sound of agreement and tucks up beside him— _content, hopeful_ —and Daryl finds himself a little less adrift as he lets his eyes slide shut. He stretches an arm around Jesus and considers that maybe what home means hasn’t really changed at all. It’s always been his people, the ones worth fighting for. Whatever this is happening to them, if they live through it, he ain’t gonna stop searching.

“You shouldn’t,” Jesus mumbles into his side and a wave of reassurance hits Daryl.

The exhaustion hits too—doubled up maybe—and drags him quickly towards sleep, but for the first time in a long time there’s a foundation of calm built under him.


End file.
